Kudos to the Nameless Theater in No Name Town

Last night Plotnik heard a first: someone actually ran through the theater crowd shouting "Is there a doctor in the house?"

An elderly woman had collapsed in her seat towards the end of Act One. The actors froze on stage, an announcement came over the P.A. that the actors would now move backstage and the show would continue after a pause. The theater manager walked down the aisles looking for a doctor, found one, then they called the paramedics, who arrived with a stretcher and, after a few difficulties, hauled the lady off, who was crying and babbling in her blankets.

The company's artistic director then took the stage, thanked the audience for its patience, and announced the show would now begin again from where it had stopped. The break lasted perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes.

The actors returned from backstage, the dramaturg gave the line over the loud speaker to the teenage boy who was to speak it, he spoke it and the show continued flawlessly as if nothing had happened.

It was astonishing, really, to see how quickly everyone could reestablish their connection with the scene on the stage, both audience and actors.

Plotnik is not saying the name of the play because this attention to emergency is the best thing he could say about it. He is going to write his review with a little more sympathy so he would prefer not having someone Google the show and find these personal comments. The show itself, in truth, felt like you were sitting around a campfire at a National Park while the rangers acted out a historical drama using children from the audience. The cliches were a mile a minute. Enough said.

But the theater itself proved to Plotnik just how effective training is for the employees of a public institution. Kudos to You Who Shall Remain Nameless.